February 4, 2003
By Lucille Davie
CLEVELAND Police Station, one of the city's oldest police stations, is turning 100 this year.
Cleveland, a small suburb some eight kilometres east of the city, probably dates back to 1896, when Cleveland Railway Station appears in a report of the Railway Commissioner. It's likely that for some time there was not much else in Cleveland but the railway station, except for the rapidly growing population at Jumper's Mine, south of the railway line.
Although there was a police presence in the area from 1903, the police station was built in 1910. Jumper's Mine donated the use of mine property in the form of five rooms and stables, to the Cleveland police.
In 1903 the Commissioner of Police wrote to the "Secretary to the Law Department" stating, in his antiquated English, that he had opened a "Police Post" at Cleveland.
"I beg to inform you that I have opened a Police Post at Cleveland with a force of 2 Sergeants and 8 men. As the Public Works Department have been so long in arranging for land for a Police Station and as the establishment of a Police Post at Cleveland was very urgent I have been given the use of five rooms by the Manager of the Jumpers Gold Mining Company to be occupied by the men."
The Public Works Department had simply taken too long to provide the funds and approve the quote.
In 1904 iron and wood rooms were finally built, on the site where the present police station stands. And finally, in 1910, at a cost of £1 850, the police station went up: a charge office, three non-commissioned officers' rooms, 10 troopers' rooms, a mess room, a lavatory, a kitchen, a bathroom, latrines, and three cells.
H Tennant, Secretary to the Law Department, said in a letter to the Director of Public Works, Pretoria: "I shall be glad if you will be good enough to make arrangements to have these buildings erected at the estimated price." Jumper's Mine donated the land again, and Cleveland had its first formal police station.
These original buildings still stand. The main building is a long single storey structure, with an attractive pillared entrance on either side with a row of sash windows in between the two entrances. This façade is no longer visible as a high wall as been built a metre or two in front of it, with the new entrance now positioned around the back of the building.
The rest of the building is distinguished by attractive arches, long veranda corridors, four-metre tall wooden ceilings, slated wood-lined walls, fireplaces (some with their original small green tiles), and sash windows. The original kitchen is still in place although no longer in use, but it retains its wonderful coal stove and large stone basin.
The stables are part of a set of outbuildings (the police officers say they can still smell the horses), and the water furrows are still evident down one side inside the building. Another outbuilding consists of prison cells which have been converted, like the stables, into offices. The station has just had new cells added to the complex. Another building used to be a court, and is now used as a storeroom for recovered stolen goods.
In the 1960s an unattractive barracks was built south of the original buildings, and it still houses the officers who come from out of town.
The station in 2003
Nowadays the Cleveland Police Station polices an area of 40 square kilometres, in which some 240 000 people live. Senior Superintendent Eddie Mboweni, with 131 police officers, patrols this area, in which, says Mboweni, they have managed in the last two years to stabilise the crime rate.
Mboweni was transferred two years ago to Cleveland from Phalaborwa, where he was station commander. When he arrived at Cleveland the morale at the station was low, with several union leaders seemingly in charge. His attitude was one of "let's focus on work", and it has clearly turned the station around.
There's an atmosphere of friendliness amongst officers, and, judging by the smiles offered to strangers, they are clearly happy in their jobs. Mboweni encourages his team to be seen on the streets of their precinct, urging people to report crimes, and visit people at their homes.
What makes his team exceptional is that most of them don't live in the precinct they police - they're from Pretoria, Soweto, and as far as Limpopo, like Mboweni. This means that they live in the barracks and only occasionally see their families, so it's a tremendous credit to Mboweni that he has a motivated police force.
The area is a tough one to police: it includes a mix of hostels, squatters, a freeway, railway station, heavy, medium and light industry, and all ranges of residential accommodation.
But the Cleveland officers have another strong support arm - the Community Policing Forum (CPF) , who assist the police with 38 armed volunteers. The CPF's function is to liaise between the community, business and the police, and they have been very successful in further boosting the morale of the Cleveland force.
Robbie Taitz, who heads up the CPF, has managed to get a sponsored metal ramp for the disabled installed at the station. Another initiative is getting Spar supermarket to sponsor the station's monthly tea, coffee and biscuits.
Mboweni says he is on the brink of forming a centenary committee to bash around some ideas on how the station is to celebrate its birthday.
Jumpers Mine in the background, with Cleveland Railway Station in the foreground
Origins of Cleveland
There's some dispute as to how the suburb got its name, and at times in its early days, it was even referred to as "Tooronga". Anna Smith in her
Johannesburg Street Names gives several possibilities.
It could have been named after American president Stephen Grover Cleveland, in office from 1885 to 1889 (and again from 1893 to 1897). An American engineer, Harry Cleveland Perkins, could possibly have given his middle name to the suburb.
Mine manager WT Hallimond could have offered the name based on Cleveland College in Darlington, England, where he was educated. He was mine manager from 1888 until around 1911. The nearby Yorkshire Cleveland Hills is another possibility.
But the most likely possibility is that an Australian, Florence Richards, who owned the land and in 1907 applied for permission to lay out the township of Cleveland, named the suburb after a street in her home town of Melbourne. It seems that at first the names Cleveland and Tooronga (also a street in Melbourne) were used interchangeably. Tooronga was dropped at some stage, and given to one of the streets in the suburb. Several of the other street names have an Australian connection - Myrnong, another street in Melbourne, and Dandenong, a town in Victoria.
Joburg's first police station
Johannesburg's first police station was in Kort Street, between Market and Commissioner Streets, according to Anna Smith in
Johannesburg Firsts. This site was used in the 1890s to build the Gaiety Theatre which was demolished in 1972.
The barracks for the officers were at the bottom of Market Square, while the barracks for the mounted police were in Kazerne in Bree Street, west of the CBD.
Soon after this a police station was built in 1887 in Bree Street, on the corner of Simmonds Street. A police station still stands on this site, but it is believed to be a slightly later building, now used as a photo shop. The present building is old although no date is available for its construction. It retains its thick walls and tall ceilings, and its façade is striking in red and white.
